Syracuse, N.Y. - Just how many white-tailed deer call the east side of Syracuse home?

That question will be answered at a special meeting set for 7 p.m. Tuesday at Nottingham High School. The meeting, hosted by Tomorrow's Neighborhoods Today- 5, a city-funded community group representing the city's southeast side, will feature a presentation by Brian Underwood, a research wildlife biologist for the U.S. Geological Survey who also teaches at SUNY ESF.

Underwood has has done extensive research on deer behavior and deer/motor vehicle accidents for nearly 30 years. His research has taken him across the Northeast and the upper Mid-West and Mid-Atlantic regions. He currently has a research project that's been going for the past 20 years concerning deer on the south shore of Long Island.

This past summer and winter, two of his SUNY ESF students assisted in a study counting deer around the eastern part of Syracuse. One student worked in the summer, the other during the winter,.

They looked at an area covering about 15 square miles. It was bordered by Route 690 on the north, Route 481 to the south and east and Route I-81 to the west. He declined to give out any numbers prior to the meeting.

"I don't think it's going to surprise anyone - especially the people who've been living with it for a while," he said.

Underwood said he plans to give a presentation that will last about 50 minutes and will answer questions afterward. He stressed he's not going to offer his opinions, or give any solutions about what should be done with the deer.

"That's not my job. It's a pretty challenging thing. Before you decide what to do, you first have to know how many there are, and where they are," he said. "I'm not going to say what the city or county plans to do, or should do. It's not my call to make."

Kirby agreed with Underwood that the issue is complex and controversial. Complaints from residents include that the deer are eating up vegetation (plants, flowers and shrubs) on yards, helping to spread Lyme disease, over-browsing the plants and trees in nearby woods and that there's been deer/motor vehicle accidents. He didn't have statistics, though, involving cases of Lyme disease among residents or the number of accidents.

"And it's not like these deer just live here (in Syracuse). They're urban, suburban deer. They go back and forth between the city and DeWitt," Kirby said. "We have heard reports, though, of herds of deer, as manyas 10-12, resting in yards all day long."

"We invited people based on suggestions from the county executive, the mayor's office and from suggestions from residents who are concerned about the issue," said Luke Dougherty, director of community engagement from Mayor Stephanie Miner's office.

The task force met a couple of times, but progress halted when its chairman left and the discussion indicated there were widely different opinions about what should be done and who's going to pay for it, Kirby said.

Kirby said in his opinion, the only solution is to "cull" the herd. He said that was discussed by the task force members, but a consensus could not be reached.

"It got down to such things as: 'Where will the culling take place? Who will pay for it?' And then you had some groups that didn't want anything done."